Xi Jinping’s assertive words and deeds leave ever less room for Western naivety. But if foreign credulity is replaced with despair, China will take that for a win
The war in Ukraine hung over the latest forum, jointly hosted by Sweden’s foreign ministry and the German Marshall Fund, a think-tank. There was no happy talk about China being an ideal peace-broker, as some European leaders had suggested in the early months of the conflict. Instead, participants talked of Chinese envoys touring European capitals to recommend that Ukraine lay down its arms and sue for peace, while castingas a ruler acting in self-defence.
Chinese officials, backed by some foreign business bosses, accuse Western governments of planning wholesale economic decoupling, a ruinously disruptive and costly outcome. In truth, talk of decoupling is a straw man. On each shore of the Atlantic, insiders say, there is agreement that perhaps two-thirds of trade with China involves no strategic implications, and should be encouraged. At the same time, governments are aligned on the need to scrutinise a few sectors and deals much more closely.
Western governments face shared challenges to their domestic politics as China becomes dominant in such sectors as electric vehicles. While China has every right to compete in industries of the future, the forum was invited to contemplate the politics of a world in which millions of car-plant workers blame Chinese imports, backed by vast state subsidies, for taking their jobs.
The groupings have fuzzy boundaries. Some European countries, such as France, share the Biden administration’s faith in industrial policies to protect manufacturing jobs. But France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, is called “deeply pessimistic” about geopolitics by those who have briefed him about China.
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